After that there was a pause, for Laurie did not care to put the same inquiry which he had just answered, to his elder brother. And Ben did not volunteer any information about the part he meant to take. Ben could not evaporate in talk, as Laurie could. He could not make up his mind to his fate, and adapt himself to circumstances. Though his pride had forbidden him any struggle against his father’s will, yet in his heart he was embittered against his father. There was injustice in it. Of course, he repeated to himself, fellows who had meant it all their lives must do better than fellows who only began to mean it in necessity. Laurie was right so far. And under this frightful disadvantage their father, of his own will, had placed them. Frank had a profession, and might be not much the worse. But Ben himself had been brought up to be heir of Renton. His heart grew hard within him as he thought it all over. It seemed to him that if he had known it from the beginning he would not have cared. He would have gone in for anything,--what did it matter?--professional work, or trade, or anything, so long as he started fair, and had the same advantages as his neighbours. Now he must thrust himself into something which was already full of legitimate competitors. He sat and looked into the flame of the lamp, and took no notice of his brothers. But their fate added an aggravation to his own. Frank was not so bad; it made less difference to Frank than to any of them. An officer in a marching regiment was as good a gentleman as a Guardsman. But Laurie a poor artist, and himself he could not tell what! The thought galled him to the heart. ‘And, Ben, what shall you do?’ said Frank. ‘We have told you, and you ought to tell us. I don’t suppose you mean to stay on with mamma. What shall you do?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Ben, with a sudden descent into the depths of despondency. He had almost wept as he spoke. One had his profession, the other at least a taste, if nothing more. Poor Ben, the first-born, had no speciality. He might have been a political man, with a hand in the government of his country, or he might have been a farmer, or he might have gone to Calcutta, as Dick Westbury had done; whereas, now, at five-and-twenty, he could not tell what to do. ‘Never mind, you’ll do the best of us all;--you were always the cleverest of us all,’ said Frank, shocked at his brother’s dejected looks; and then it flashed across them what their father had said, that it would be most hard upon Ben.